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Thursday, September 30, 2010

☞ READ: The Business of Gospel Sundays

There's a recent Slate article that breaks down the origins of the Gospel tourist trade in Harlem and how it all got started. About 60 of Harlem's 338 Churchs do some major business with mainly European money ever since local officials figured out they could promote the energetic church services in all the NYC tour books back in the 1980's. One baptist church that was featured by the New York Time in 1996 attracted over 300 tourist every Sunday from Brazil but when that country's economy faltered a decade ago, the financial gains were no longer seen at the dwindling Sunday services. Now that the $900-$1,500 additional weekly income from the tourist trade has diminished, that said church has now filed for bankruptcy.

Additional notable mentions include the fact that church service is a seriously formal affair in Harlem and sightseeing tourists in their weekend casual shorts and flip flops are not permitted in houses of worship. Nevertheless, one parishioner mentioned that he felt that "It's like you're going through a safari, and we're the animals as you are on the bus riding by, pointing at the zebras." Read more in the Slate article: LINK

10 comments:

Well ... while the loss of tourist income hurts Harlem (as does New York), I think Harlem has a little too much religion (as does the US). Most of these churches are bad neighbors, extremely racist and homophobic, and intellectually benighted. I'm not trying to be a provocateur (really!), but I think religion is a pernicious myth that does more harm than good -- especially in devout pockets like Harlem.

I remember a couple of years back overhearing a tourist ask somebody (probably another tourist) "What time does the show start?"

I remember the James Brown gospel scene from the Blues Brothers movie and I honesly wonder if these tourists were expecting to see that kind of thing(!).

I don't know how the regular parishoners put up with this.

All you get out of this practice is a bunch of churches vying with each other to have the best gospel choir for the tourists. I imagine this would be a distraction from them doing whatever good works that they are supposed to be doing.

I had some French friends visiting, they were regular church goers in France but where shy of worshiping at a Harlem church as they may be mistaken as tourists, understandably so. After introducing them to a local church they where warmly welcomed into the service and had a great experience of our Harlem gospel, and made some new friends. Other European friends of mine are always conscious of being disrespectful by observing a Harlem church service. So for me, the stereotype of all tourists as insensitive to the local Churches is not always true.

Bob, it is usually not a good idea to discuss religion, and some of the churches can be seen as intolerant of the diversity we have in New York by following the bible to the letter, but to paint them as racist homophobic bad neighbors is a little extreme. Like all prejudice, it is based on a foundation of fear and ignorance Maybe you should get to know your church neighbors and some of that fear and ignorance may be undone.

I am sorry but Bob is absolutely correct, religion is responsible for much of what is wrong in the world today and many of the churches in Harlem are bad neighbours preaching homophobia, much racism and having the people of Harlem who listen believing that God alone will solve their issues.

As a person living on this earth I am often offended by religion as it is preached in most of the world and the fact that you say to Bob that it is not a good idea to discuss religion goes to show exactly what I mean about intolerance.

Harlem BBC, I somewhat agree with you, some world problems are caused not by religion, but those who pervert it, i.e. the taliban etc, and some churches teach the bible to the rigid letter which unfortunately is interoperated as homophobic, which I have a problem with. But it may surprise you these negatives are not the main subject of discussion, the churches spend most their efforts on love thy neighbor, forgiveness, compassion, charity, turn the other cheek etc etc, and the parishioners try to live by these very high standards, to characterize them as awful people is so far off base. In terms of being good neighbors, the churches have been a positive force through Harlem’s darkest times, and have turned around the lives of many very destructive individuals, which I think is far outweighs street double parking. Each to his own but to demonize these mostly very good people is disingenuous. Again, try to get to know your church neighbors, they are actually nice people.

I'm sure that individual churches are wonderful and of course they are not all alike in their preachings but I don't necessarily think they are a positive force in Harlem. If you are saying there would be even more violence up here w/o them then I guess I agree but ultimately they may be part of the problem in that they don't offer viable ways out of poverty but rather seek to only console the poor - noble but not effective in creating change.

Atlah World Missionary Church on 123rd & Lenox - now THAT'S the only church I will go on record saying it's got horns sticking from each side of its steeple. Such a dirty disgusting, racist, hateful, omniphobic poor excuse for a place of worship. So much so, that the poor church directly next to it had to post a sign saying something like "we are in no way affiliated with Atlah."

It's pastor James David Manning preaches Christianity while being the polar opposite of what it actually means to be Christ-like!

I have to second Westsider's motion. Unfortunately, a negative light is cast over legitimately peaceful and tolerant religious institutions by those who pervert it like that sociopathic quack attention seeking Manning and his congregation of post-lobotomy patients. Tolerance and brotherly love is no good for TV though.

zLister, I agree, the lunatic fringe gets all the attention and makes it easy for others to latch onto these nut jobs and assume all churches are also closet lunatics. The extremist nut jobs like in most groups are the minority and do not represent the silent majority. As for David Manning, my theory is he is an attention seeker and uses his church as his very own American Idol. He is a truly awful pathetic individual and where he is dangerous is he makes it easy for others to discredit the good churches, but he would not let that get in the way of appearing on another YouTube video. As for churches lifting people out of poverty, I'm not sure they are effective in that but they make a very valuable first step in turning peoples lives around from crime, drugs and gambling, which is an essential first step.